These reports, if this is how the court in fact goes, seem nuts. If an agency can get deference on something as demonstrably conjured up out of thin air as the census citizenship question, the court will be significantly expanding the scope of agency deference. #2020Census 5/

And expanding deference is the exact opposite of where the court’s conservatives have seemed headed on a host of other issues. #2020Census 6/

(That said, an important caveat here: It sometimes can be hard to read/interpret oral arguments. Sometimes the justices are just playing devil’s advocate or probing to test limits. There are cases I thought were lost and ended up wins - and vice versa.) #2020Census 7/

(That last tweet is especially true about big cases where in addition to the oral arguments, there are a host of briefs from outside parties to provide the court with additional detail and nuance.) #2020Census 8/

Under Amendment 1 passed by Missouri voters, responsibility for drawing state house & state senate maps now belongs in the first instance to a newly created non-partisan state demographer, who has to follow new strengthened map drawing rules. #fairmaps 3/

On Mon, racial (as opposed to partisan) gerrymandering returns to SCOTUS as the court hears the appeal of a decision finding that 11 Virginia house of delegates districts had been unconstitutionally drawn with too much consideration of race. #fairmaps 1/ brennancenter.org/legal-work/bet…

This is the second trip to SCOTUS for the Virginia racial gerrymandering case. #fairmaps 2/

Originally, the district court held that the 11 districts were *not* racial gerrymanders. But in March 2017, SCOTUS reversed that decision, holding that the district court had applied the wrong standard in deciding that race had not predominated. #fairmaps 3/

Related threads

NEWS: Challengers in the Census citizenship question case ask #SCOTUS to dismiss the case before the justices, which is over evidence allowed, saying the Ross deposition issue is moot and other questions can be resolved on any appeal of final judgment. supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/1…

This is a smart filing, IMHO, and interesting that the challengers are moving more quickly than DOJ following Tuesday's trial court decision in the case. (See: buzzfeednews.com/article/domini…)

BREAKING: DOJ has filed notice that it is appealing this week's ruling against the Trump administration's sought inclusion of a citizenship question on the once-a-decade Census.

CENSUS CASE UPDATE: DOJ goes to #SCOTUS on the eve of closing arguments in the Census citizenship question trial and “suggests” it “may wish to reconsider” putting trial proceedings on hold while it considers the discovery question. supremecourt.gov/DocketPDF/18/1… (h/t @marty_lederman)

Wild to see this filing coming from SG Noel Francisco only on late Monday — after DOJ received trial stay denials from the district court (11/20) and 2nd Cir (11/21) by last Wednesday.

FWIW: Closing the loop on this Census case thread tonight, there was no further docket entry, reflecting #SCOTUS action or anything else, following DOJ’s odd letter filed earlier this evening. supremecourt.gov/search.aspx?fi…

... DOJ went back to the trial court, where closing arguments are scheduled for later this month in the trial, asking on Sunday for everything to be put on hold until SCOTUS is done with its case over the evidence. documentcloud.org/documents/5190…

This morning, Judge Furman ordered the challengers — state gov'ts and immigration groups — to respond to DOJ's motion by 4p Tuesday.

While #SCOTUS stopped the Ross deposition for now and allowed the deposition of Gore and other discovery to go ahead, Gorsuch, joined by Thomas, would have granted the stay as sought by DOJ — halting both depositions and the extra discovery. buzzfeednews.com/article/chrisg…

The Chief found a way to keep this to only two justices voicing disagreement with the order. That's an impressive compromise — which involved quite a bit of work inside the court, I have to imagine. buzzfeednews.com/article/chrisg…